A new board game to help young people transition from primary school to secondary school has been created by a group of pupils.
The S1 youngsters from Nairn Academy came up with the concept based on their own experiences of moving up to secondary school.
Now, it is hoped that the game, designed by Carina Reid, Phoebe Waddell, Skye Kemp, Calvin Brown and Tom Rhind, could be rolled out to other schools across the country.
In the next few weeks, the five pupils who created Transition Train will visiting all the Nairn Academy catchment area primary schools to play it with pupils who in August will be starting at the school.
Calvin Brown who went to Cawdor Primary School said:
“I have enjoyed working as a team.
“I really would have liked a game like this to help me get ready for going to Nairn Academy.”
The board game, shaped as a hexagon, in a nod to the design of the Nairn Academy building, focuses on different areas of school life such as the teachers, clubs, worries and concerns, lessons and different areas of the budling.
Phoebe Waddell said:
“I liked coming up with all the ideas about what we should include in the board game.
“I felt strongly that we should have a section on worries and concerns.”
Tom Rhind added:
“It was important that we made the game and came up with the ideas.
“Adults wouldn’t have been able to think of all the things that should be included, and they wouldn’t be able to understand all the things that we think of or wonder about when going up to a new school.”
The group was led by PEF Skills Teacher Jacky Davidson.
She said:
“This group has worked so hard and done so much research on board games.
“They brainstormed lots of different ideas and eventually came up with this concept.
“It is currently being tested by the group.
“It really does cover all aspects of school life and I think this will be a valuable addition to the transition programme, not just at Nairn Academy, but at other schools too.”
Also working on the project was depute headteacher Sharon Sharkey who worked on the design aspect of the game.
She said:
“Their idea is exceptionally good, and we really do think this could be commercialised and rolled out to different schools.
“We are creating a digitalised version of the game which can be individualised.”
She added:
“It’s involved a lot of work from the pupils but also staff from different areas of the school as well.
“For example, it’s also put the school’s new laser cutter to good use as that has been used to make all the playing pieces.
“It’s been a real team effort although it’s the five pupils who have made this happen.”
